


Open Hands

by Fervent_dreamer



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Attempted Assault, Derogatory Language, F/M, Frank gets tased, Hurt/Comfort, Karen is a badass, People get shot, Pining, Reunions, Takes a while but Frank shows up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-12-27 22:09:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21126041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fervent_dreamer/pseuds/Fervent_dreamer
Summary: Excerpt: Karen found half a park bench and claimed it, ignoring the poignant sigh from a grumpy septuagenarian on the other side. She balanced the case files on her lap and started in on her sandwich, looking up occasionally at all the people.She saw him that day, as she did most days, puzzled together from pieces of strangers. The crew cut off a jogger. The prominent ears off a gangster. The broad shoulders on a business man. Her last three jobs entailed her taking tiny details and cobbling them into one comprehensible picture, it was second nature to her now.Hello, Frank.After events at the hospital in Punisher season 2, Karen lives her life trying not to look for a certain vigilante.





	Open Hands

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the song "Crowded Places" by Rynn.
> 
> As per usual, not beta'd though I did try to edit this time around. ^-^;

Karen remembered the one family vacation they ever took, when she was young—five, maybe six years old, which would have made Kevin what… three? Young enough for their mother to pick him up by the hands and swing him playfully at the edge of Southern Carolina waves. Karen remembered she wanted to build a sandcastle. A huge one, she told her father, like the ones you saw in the cartoons.

Dad laughed. “Okay, girlie. I think we can give it a shot.”

The falling tide left behind a large swath of damp beach. They piled up a small mountain of sand to the musical rhythm of waves and her baby brother’s laughter.

“Go get us a couple of handfuls of dry sand, baby,” Dad said. “There’s a couple of spots here that are a little too damp.”

So little Karen, never really having been to a beach before, ran further up the way to grab a tiny fistful of sand. Only it didn’t pack like dirt, instead the tighter she held it, the more slipped past her knuckles and between her fingers, so by the time she got to her dad, she was empty handed.

“Sorry, Dad!” And she ran back up only for it to happen again. By the third time, frustrated tears were welling in her eyes.

“Hey, hey.” He caught her, pulling her in for a hug. “No need for the waterworks. Here, let me show you.” And he did. He bent down and showed her how cupped, open hands could hold more sand and the sand would mostly stay as long as she needed it. He showed her how, the tighter you clenched your fist the faster you lost it.

Frank Castle reminded her of sand, during her more poetic moments. He burned so hot even when he killed cold. The landscape of his emotions shifting with the wind. So, Karen did her best to deal with him with open hands. Hands that offered help, hands that offered friendship, she did her best to hold them out before her and never, ever, curl them shut.

That meant that she didn’t search for him, not seriously. She could have gotten in touch with Micro. After all, she’d been the one to get Frank the info on him in the first place. But she refrained. Curtis, she’d discovered digging deeper into the Lewis bombing. But she never followed that lead either. 

No, she had to wait for Frank to come to her, no matter how infuriating it was.

But she looked for him in other ways.

Karen couldn’t help herself. 

She tried to put Frank out of her mind, she really did. Karen dove into every case that Foggy and Matt handed to her. She snooped and researched and turned up obscure leads, all to give them their case-winning information, and she did it wholeheartedly. But sometimes…

It’s just that, sometimes Foggy’s jokes about “the best office smells like salami” fell flat. Sometimes Matt’s laughter at those jokes held a hint of desperation that grated on Karen’s nerves; like he was afraid that he their tolerance would evaporate if he wasn’t the perfect friend. Sometimes she just couldn’t stand that her clothes smelled like pickles and nitrates.

“Hey guys, I’m going to head out for lunch.” She told them, standing up from the one large table that served as a desk for all three of them. She gathered one of the sandwiches Theo left for them and a couple of the smaller case files.

“Again?” Foggy whined.

“Are you sure?” Matt asked, his head perking to the side. He listened to more than her words; she knew.

“It’s like a hundred degrees outside.” Foggy emphasized the point by waving a hand towards the coat and tie that drooped pathetically over a chair in the corner. If he unbuttoned anymore, he was going to lose that shirt and Matt wasn’t much better. “Hell, it’s probably hotter than that.”

“Yep.” She brightly popped the “p”, her hands busy re-tying her blonde hair in a bun to get it off her neck. She'd ditched the office shrug ages ago and was about ready to strip to her camisole.

“You’d think you were more Catholic than Matt the way you’re torturing yourself,” he said. 

“Well, I would say I’m not that bad but well…” Matt shrugged with self-deprecating smile. 

Karen bet that the second she was out the door, the two would go flop on the freezer floor in little more than their boxers and undershirts, damn the health inspectors anyway.

“Joke’s on you two,” Karen told them snatching up her sandwich and folders. “I’ll be getting fresh air and a breeze instead of fumes from the melting ceiling fans.”

“Yeah, I’m sure the smell of hundreds of sweaty people with questionable hygiene is a vast improvement over brine and cured meat.” Foggy said, sarcastically. Matt chuckled at that, not entirely suppressing a shudder at the notion. He never did tell them how heightened his senses were.

Karen shook her head. “See you in an hour.”

Foggy’s phone rang. Marci’s ringtone, probably calling about their engagement party.

“Bye, Karen,” he said distractedly before picking up.

She waved and turned to head out when Matt caught her free hand. She paused. Looking back at him, he wore an unreadable expression.

“Hey. Take care, alright?” he said softly.

"It's just the park Matt." She gave his fingers a small squeeze. "I'll be fine." 

His mouth barely opened before she was slipping out of his grasp and outside. The bell above the door chimed as she left.

The heat smacked her in the face with all the subtlety of a Louisville slugger, but despite that, she could already feel herself relaxing, feel her anticipation building.

For hundreds of years, New York had been a city of possibility. It was a place where you could make your millions, or lose it all. Aliens could attack you from the sky, or you could be saved by a lightning god. You could meet the love of your life just running into a stranger on a street. 

No matter how more likely some scenarios were than others, the fact remained that they were all possible, like winning the lottery. 

It was foolish she knew. Stupid and delusional. But once she'd given a homeless man her change and he cast off his disguise, becoming someone she’d ached for like a fucking fairy tale.

After his third dramatic return to life, there were just as many Punisher sightings as Hulk sightings being splashed all over the internet. Even though the last confirmed whereabouts of the Hulk was in Sokovia and Frank (probably) wouldn’t be that sloppy. She pointedly ignored them.

They gave her a little bit of hope though, even as she scoffed at them and scrolled past. 

What made her laugh, was when the Bulletin started publishing them too. Granted, only on their website, but if Ellison was letting them get away with crap like that, she wondered what else was going on over there. 

Whenever she saw that click-bait, she always sent him a frothing meme of J. Jameson from the Bugle. Just as a tiny reminder that she still cared about him, no matter how things ended at the hospital.

But, ended they did. Ellison just let her go without any kind of fight or attempt to bring her back. Even knowing it was born of his pride, it still hurt. At least she would always have Matt and Foggy, even if they drove her spare.

So, when Karen started feeling like her skin was too small to contain her, when she felt the yawning void reaching for her in her apartment, when she was about to throttle her coworkers she went to crowded places to be reminded that _anything_ could happen.

She was no longer a girl cast out by her father, scared and guilty in most populated city in the US. She had friends, business associates, and people she greeted in her apartment complex. Crowds no longer held her in their cold, isolating grip. No, now they held a sense of hope, however faint, and how could she feel alone with that?

Karen found half a park bench and claimed it, ignoring the poignant sigh from a grumpy septuagenarian on the other side. She balanced the case files on her lap and started in on her sandwich, looking up occasionally at all the people.

She saw him that day, as she did most days, puzzled together from pieces of strangers. The crew cut off a jogger. The prominent ears off a gangster. The broad shoulders on a business man. Her last three jobs entailed her taking tiny details and cobbling them into one comprehensible picture, it was second nature to her now.

Hello, Frank.

It was a comfort to her. She didn’t wonder as much if she could hear Frank in the grunt of a construction worker, or an indignant shout from a car. She could pretend that it was his muscled back that ducked around a corner or his calloused hand that reached for a hot-dog from the cart. It tricked that piece of her soul into missing him less. There was no reason to worry. See? He was right there.

Her lunch finished, her papers organized, she tossed the butcher-paper wrapper in a trash can and headed back. Wistfulness walked in step with her all the way to the door, only to break off once she entered. She had work to do.

* * *

Karen wrapped up the statement, jotting down the last of her notes. “Thank you, so much, for your information. I’ll give this to Mr. Nelson and Mr. Murdock and we’ll see what we can do.”

“Thank _you_, dear. I’m certain my poor Cecil wouldn’t have left me destitute like this. His nasty sister had to do something with the will.” The old woman watched as Karen packed up, then headed towards the door. She followed her, pushing the button on her electric scooter around well-loved furniture in order to the threshold.

“It’s the start of the weekend, so I don’t know how much work we’ll be able to get done, but they’ll get back to you by Tuesday for sure.” She told her pausing at the door.

“Of course, I understand.” The woman’s voice croaked with her age. “Do you have any plans for tonight? A pretty young woman like yourself ought to have a date.” Her eyes sparkled when she asked. Karen gave a small laugh and a large smile.

“I have an engagement party to go to tonight, actually.” She said. “My friend’s fiancé has been planning it for weeks.”

“Oh! How delightful.” She smiled around her dentures. “Are you taking someone? I remember when my Cecil proposed. I was so shocked—hadn’t been expecting it at all—but it was right there in the square that he got down to one knee and...”

Karen ended up staying another twenty minutes later than she’d been expecting, but finally managed to extricate herself without too cutting her off or cutting her too short. She waved one last time, forcing a smile on her face, trying to not think about how the woman reminded her of Fisk’s mother. 

This was a happy day. She didn’t need ghosts or memories coming back to haunt her. She needed to be Karen Page: investigator for Nelson and Murdock and unofficial PR rep. While she’d told them about her brother and about Wesley, they didn’t need _that _Karen Page at the party. 

Yes, they were both the same woman, wholeheartedly, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t show a different side of the same dice. So, as she rushed home, dove into her formal clothes and refreshed her makeup. She also downed two quick shots of her “happy” alcohol. 

Beer was for every day, always cold and in the fridge. Bourbon was for wishing, then subsequently forgetting. Vodka was to be avoided at all costs. Rum was for lifting her spirits, making her just generally happier and sweeter.

Two shots only. Not even enough to feel a buzz as she hailed a cab and gave the man an address to the hotel. It was just enough for her smile to reach her eyes, enough for her to leave her ghosts in her apartment where they belonged. 

Actually, her ghosts should belong somewhere other than her apartment, but that was a subject best pondered another day.

When Karen walked into the ballroom, she walked into a midnight wonderland. Tablecloths and curtains draped over everything in a deep blue and accented with silver. Lights dripped from the ceilings and silver details twinkled like stars in the linens. Everything was gorgeous, and expensive. Marci’s last couple of cases must have earned her quite the bonus.

“Karen!’ She turned around to see Foggy running up to her, looking dapper in his tux and his tie. “Thank god you’re here. I was afraid that you weren’t going to show up and then Marci was going to tan my hide.”

“Of course I’m here! What made you think I wouldn’t be?” She gave him a hug. 

When he returned it, she could feel the heat pouring off of him and knew he was just minutes away from sweating through his clothes. Oh-no, poor Foggy. He hadn’t been this nervous even on the Castle opening statement. Thrown to the wolves at the last minute with no preparation or back up, he’d taken that trial far better than he was taking this party.

“I don’t know.” He all but stuttered. “Nerves, you know? That and Marci’s been threatening me, saying that everyone I know had better be here since she started planning this thing.”

“Well, I’m here. And I’m sure Matt’s around somewhere.” Karen ran her hands up and down his arms, trying to get bring Foggy out of his head and into the moment a little bit. “Besides, it can’t be worse than running for District Attorney out of your brother’s butchery.”

“I don’t know Karen, there I didn’t have Marci threatening to disembowel me… oh wait.” His laugh fell just shy of hysteria.

Thank god that’s when Matt decided to show up. 

“Hey, I thought I heard my name.” He said, walking up to the pair. He was also in a suit and would have looked delicious... if she hadn’t walked in to find his ex in his bed, one he chose to “die” with. But Karen was over that. Really, water under the bridge.

“Foggy here is about ready to mess himself over the party.” She said laughingly.

“Why? It’s your engagement party, can’t you just have fun?” Matt asked, putting his hand onto Foggy’s shoulder.

“You would think. If it was just my family and her’s, sure fun could be had by all. But it’s not it's not just that, half of New York’s elite is going to be here. Every big-name client, her entire firm, and half of all of her rival firms too. I’m going to be bleeding in a sea of sharks and I don’t even have a case to hide behind.” Foggy looked around frantically as he spoke.

A waiter, who knew how to do his job, spotted him and walked over with a tray full of wine. He wordlessly offered it to the group, and Foggy shook off their hands to grab a glass and slug it back.

“Woah,” Karen gave a startled laugh.

“Okay then.” Matt thanked the waiter, dismissing him. Though Karen snagged two more glasses before he walked away. She handed Foggy one, and took the empty from him. Matt frowned at her, and she ignored it again. Sipping at the other quarter full glass.

Still glaring at her, even through his sunglasses, he asked Foggy, “Why don’t you tell us what’s really bothering you.”

Foggy only sipped at his glass this time, nodding his thanks to Karen. “It’s not that I don’t love you guys, I really do. I’m happy that Nelson and Murdock is getting a 2.0 version, but I committed career suicide on the fucking news! And now I have to face all of these people and smile and answer all of their questions next to my insanely successful fiancé. How can I do anything but embarrass myself and make her look bad?”

He wanted to slug that second glass too. Karen didn’t need to have Matt’s super hearing or whatever to see the sweat beading on Foggy’s upper lip and that his hand holding the wine glass kept twitching in aborted movements.

“Foggy.” Matt said it like a parent. “Don’t think of it like that.”

“How else am I supposed to think of it, Matt?” Foggy snapped back. Yeah, Karen heard the edge in his response. The edge that women universally recognized as someone wanting to pick a fight. She needed to put a stop to this right now, before it got any worse.

“Foggy, you chose to run for DA to get your issues out there.” Karen squeezed his shoulder. “You did it as a write-in, out of nowhere with no support and no funding and in the end, with nothing but your words and your balls, you almost won. They should all be mourning the fact that you decided to strike out on your own, not judging you for it. And even if they do, so what? How much do you love Marci?”

“A lot.” He said, seeming to focus on her more, honing in on her words for once. “Like, a _lot_, a lot.”

She had to stifle a laugh at that.

“Then what’s the problem? Anything shit directed towards you, you just say ‘I know, and despite all that she’s still marrying me. I’m the luckiest man in the world.’ then boast about her. You’re proud of her, aren’t you?”

“God, yes.”

“Then talk to people about that. Me and Matt will only be mildly offended since it’s your engagement party.”

“That’s it?” He looked so hopeful and afraid, it was all Karen could do not to coo over him like a parent with a toddler.

“That’s it, buddy.” Matt said. “It can’t be harder than talking down an entire emergency room full of pissed off gang members.”

Foggy barked a laugh at that. “Claire told you about that?”

“Yeah,” Matt said. “It was a while ago, but she told me about that. So I know, for a fact, that you can do this and do it with style.”

Foggy took a deep, shaky breath and nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. I’ve got this.”

“You’ve got this.” Matt said.

“You’ve got this.” Karen echoed.

“Right,” he said, slugging back the rest of the wine. He wiped his face with a sleeve. “Thanks guys. You’re the best friends a guy could ask for.”

“Anytime, Foggy.” Matt said.

“We’re here whenever you need us.” Karen leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek.

“Page! Don’t you go stealing my fiancé.” Marci called jokingly from two groups away.

“As if I could!” She laughed back. Then she looked back at Foggy, whispering under her breath. “Go get her.”

Foggy clapped both her and Matt on the shoulder and went to go join his bride-to-be. The shadow of his old self that had momentarily overtaken him fell away once again to reveal the confident lawyer that was driving his life with confidence down the road he wanted. When he walked up to Marci, she beamed up at him, slipping her arm through his. They talked to the group as a pair, their euphoria and love shining out for everyone to see.

“Karen?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you ever think…” Matt trailed off, not finishing his thought. Maybe because of the rum, or maybe because she was feeling generous, she threw him a bone.

“I think frequently, despite all the jokes about blondes.” She said with false cheer.

He chuckled. It sounded hollow.

“Do you ever think about us?” He asked. Her stomach dropped. There was so much emotion in that question that Karen couldn’t even begin to unpack it all.

“Do you want me to answer that honestly?” She asked, giving him a chance to take it back. 

She wanted to give both him and her an out. This topic had been looming over the both of them since he’d come back from the dead without his girlfriend in tow. She’d paid two sets of rent, in New York, for months on her own. That gesture could be taken a myriad of different ways.

“Please,” he said, ignoring the escape hatch she’d pointed him to. 

_“What about that Matt Murdock? Does he know you’re here? He’s good, Karen. Don’t throw that away for me.”_

She pushed aside the memory; she could decide for herself. “I did, for a while. When you were gone, I thought long and hard about what got us there. About what you did, and what you said.” She signaled for a couple more drinks. Picking up two she kept one and offered the other to Matt. “I thought about what I wanted, what I would say when you came back—because I knew you were coming back, I knew—and…”

“And what did you come up with?”

“About what I already told you, when we met again. I realized that while I care about you, deeply, I don’t think we could work. And I think you know that too.” She punctuated the statement with a drink.

“So there’s no…?”

“No, not like that.” She tells him gently.

It hurts him, she can see that. For all that he can see everyone’s emotions in their heartbeats, his feelings tend to tromp all over his face. Mainly in his eyebrows. She could see them twitch and crumple. Not hugely, but having been a reporter, she liked to think she could rival a police officer in ferreting out facial tics.

He gusts out a huge sigh, even as he twirls the stem of his glass. “Well, I guess that’s fair.”

“Are we good?” 

“Yeah, yeah we’re good.”

“Miss Page.” A voice grabbed her attention. She tried to suppress her relief as she searched for the owner. Her eyes caught a waving hand and she spotted Hogarth in all her untouchable splendor.

Karen gave Matt’s elbow a squeeze. “I’ll see you around, okay?”

“Okay,” he said. “I-I think that’s Tower is over by the drink table anyway. Might be my chance to bring a couple of our cases to his attention.”

They parted ways. Awkwardly, but they’d find their way through it, even if it took them a while to reach equilibrium.

Jerri introduced her to her own investigator, Malcolm, and halfheartedly made Karen an offer to join them, which she politely declined. Then Karen found a friendly face in Theo Anderson, an owner of a small-time electronics company. After him she moved onto another group. Some faces were friendlier than others, and each group was accompanied by another drink. She lost track of them all; which wasn’t really like her, but something had been brewing under her skin lately, something she didn’t want to acknowledge. So, she lost count of how many drinks she downed and shots that people bought her. 

She felt the flush of alcohol warm her cheeks and the room lost all of its hard edges. Everything softened and went from beautiful to magical. People became nicer and suddenly there was a lot that was funny to her. Not, belly laugh funny, but she was giggling fairly easily.

After dessert and toasts with some _really_ good champagne, she found she found herself doing the thing again. There were his shoulders, chatting with a woman by the window. There was his jawline, over by the band. And there, by the kitchens was—

Was him. Walking away.

Karen didn’t know what conversation she bailed on. She didn’t even know how her purse and her keys ended up in her hands. All she knew was that she was flying down the street in her heels and evening gown, barely keeping Frank in her sights.

“Hey!” She shouted. “Hey, stop!”

With one final lunge, she managed to grab his arm even against the tilt the world was sliding on.

“What the fuck?” he snarled. Only it wasn’t Frank’s voice. It was too smooth, too high. Instead of a gravelly baritone, it was a singing tenor. “Who the hell are you lady?”

When Karen finally forced her eyes to focus on his face, she saw that while the man had dark hair and strong features, there was no way he was remotely Frank Castle. Christ, how drunk was she? “I-I’m sorry, I thought you were someone else.”

“I don’t care lady, get the fuck off of me.” Just before she let him go, he shoved her. She stumbled, tripped on her hem and fell backwards into the alley. She heard a rip on her way down as she landed hard. “Fucking drunk.” She heard him spit.

He was right. She couldn’t fault him for that. Didn’t have to be such a fucking prick about it though.

She may or may not have shouted “Asshole” after him, she wasn’t sure. Her ears were ringing so it was a strong possibility.

Looking around herself, she saw a gutter pipe and decided that would do. She reached out, fumbling to get a grip on the bolted down metal. Her long fingers finally found purchase and she grasped it as well as she could. It took her two attempts, but she got herself standing upright, only faltering once. She was proud of that.

Once she got to her feet and got the chance to look around, she realized she didn’t know where the hell she was. When she turned to look the way she came, she couldn’t even say which direction the hotel was in. Shit, how far did she run after that guy?

She dug into her purse for her phone. She flicked on her location and called for an Uber. Karen was drunk, not stupid. She didn’t need to be running around in New York, at night, looking like this. Unfortunately, she’d gotten to the point in her life where she no longer needed to go looking for trouble, trouble came to her. 

Even when she just stood still.

“What do we have here fellas?”

“I dunno, looks like she’s dressed for a party.”

“Wondering if she’s willing to party with us?”

She didn’t have to look to know what kind of types they were. Boys with slow swaggers, and a cockiness that was born from being in a group, thinking that they were tough shit because of it. Maybe they were, but she didn’t care. Disappointment that it hadn’t been Frank and rage at her own fucking stupidity were possessing her like a demon—she was pissed. She also had enough liquid courage running through her veins that she wasn’t the least bit scared.

“I’m not in the mood for this tonight.” She told them, putting a hand in her purse. 

“Don’t worry sweetheart, we’ll get you in the mood.”

“Look at her dress! She was already getting _down_.”

Karen pulled out her gun. 

“Whoa, easy.”

“Oooo, kitty’s got claws.”

“Or rather the little bitch has got bark. You think you can make that bark, hot cheeks?”

“I’ll give you until the count of three, if any of you move towards me, I will shoot you.” Karen said calmly, barely slurring her words.

“Oh, I’m scared!”

“Terrified, right man?”

“One.” They were swimming before her eyes, but she chose to aim right for the middle of the three copies of the main bastard, right where they overlapped.

“This is so fucking cute.”

One made a feint towards her and she didn’t have to count anymore. She shot.

She missed.

“Whoa, what the fuck.”

“Goddamnit, I’m getting out of here.”

“Calm down lady.”

“Don’t leave, she missed.”

“Fuck it, dude.”

She shot twice more. One bullet hit a leg. A goon rushed her and grabbed her hair. The third grabbed her gun hand. A fourth shot went off—there were only five left in the magazine. She heard sirens in the distance, but didn’t know if they were for her, or even if they were, if they were going to get here in time. She kicked, she fought, she scratched. She heard swearing and felt a blow to the side of her face, but she was strangely numb to the pain that should have been there.

Karen screamed, not because she thought anyone would hear or because she was hoping someone would come save her, but because between the gunfire and the sirens, there was solid chance of them taking off. All these fuckers were cowards at heart. They preyed on women hoping for an easy power trip. Not today.

She stabbed her heel through the guy’s loosely laced pumas and wrenched her gun back. He howled and jerked away, not quite letting go. Her stiletto heel went with him, it had broken off from the main shoe. Shallow gashes bled all along her arms where he’d tried to wrestle the gun away from her. The pistol went off one more time. When the ricochet hit him in the arm, she chalked a point for pure luck.

The one hit in the leg was on the ground, scooting away. The one who got shot in the arm limped around her to the mouth of the alley. Good. Now for the first asshole.

Of course that’s when Matt dropped down from the roof in full Daredevil regalia. The only way he could have had the suit was if he took it with him to the party. Could he seriously not go one night without the damned thing?

“Are you kidding me?” She huffed.

“Jesus, Karen.” She heard him swear even as he went to town beating them. 

She shoved the gun back into her purse and she folded her arms, waiting for him to finish. The world rolled and she took a step out to the right, only to almost land flat on her face. What the—Oh yeah, her shoe. She kicked it off.

With a superfluous flourish he knocked the last guy unconscious.

“Karen, are you okay?” He asked turning to her.

“I’m fine. Nice of you to stop by, but I had it handled.”

“Handled? You call this handled?” Matt gestured to her, then to the bleeding men on the ground. “What the hell do you think you were doing with that gun?”

“And here we go again,” she wobbled and slurred. “You and your sermons.” Where the fuck was her shoe? —Oh, right. She leaned over to take off the other one so that way she was at least on even ground. Matt caught her before she could fall forward on her face.

Huh, Daredevil was here.

“You know, I had a crush on you, once upon a time.” She snorted and giggled to herself. “Separately even. The Man in Black, who saved me. The lawyer Matt Murd—”

“Karen.” He hissed and put his hand over her mouth.

She kept talking through his hand, but she knew he would hear her. He could hear heartbeats, so he could hear her. “I don’t need you to protect me anymore.” Then she grabbed his hand and pulled it away from her face. “You need to get out of here.”

“Karen, the police are on their way.”

“Yeah, and an Uber, Matt. Which is why you need to get out of here.”

“Damnit, Karen, quit saying my name!” He said it with a low growl, but it wasn’t the growl she was looking for.

“They’re out,” she gestured to the shitbags on the ground. “What are you scared of?” She wanted to start singing his name over and over just like Kevin used to do to her to drive her up a wall, just to prove a point, but she didn’t. She stopped just shy of that because she couldn’t be one-hundred percent sure that no one was listening, and she wouldn’t do that to Matt.

“You’re drunk.” He started leading her down the road. To his credit, he tried to lead her gently, but when she resisted, he yanked her along. She didn’t want to go with him right now.

“What, you’re the only one allowed to do stupid shit now? The only one who’s allowed to make mistakes?” She jerked out of his grip, but he caught her arm right back up again. “Ow! It was an honest mistake, okay?”

“You just ran out of the party. I probably wouldn’t have even followed you if I didn’t hear that guy shove you.”

“You could hear that all the way through the party? Damn, your hearing is better than I thought.”

“No, I took a step out onto the roof, because I was worried about you.”

“Still, impressive.” She said as she faltered forward. “Fuck, let go of my arm.”

A car pulled up beside them, and her phone chimed to let her know that her ride had arrived. “Thank God,” she heard Matt whisper under his breath.

It was a silver sedan, the Uber sticker glowing in the front corner of the window underneath the lights. Matt—no, _Daredevil_ opened up the door and cop-pushed her inside. The one where they put their hands on your head and push you into the car so you don’t crack your noggin. Karen tipped over in the back seat.

“You take her home and you don’t stop until you get there, you hear me?” he told the young driver who looked confused and like he couldn’t decide whether to fanboy or to crap all over himself. “And you walk her to her door. If you don’t, I’ll know about it.”

With that, Daredevil took off. Doing his parkour thing, he jumped and flipped his way onto the top of the roof. She blew a raspberry after him. Karen didn’t need to see his eyebrows to know the pained look he had on his face right now. 

“Don’t mind him.” Karen told the driver, tapping uncoordinatedly on his shoulder. “He’s an overprotective ass. I’ve got an extra twenty for you for your trouble. Once I get home, of course.”

“If it’s all the same to you, I’m not going to piss off the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen,” the driver said. Then he took off towards her home address.

She pushed the twenty into the driver’s hand, and pushed her apartment door shut on his face. She locked the doorknob, the deadbolt, and the chain. Satisfied, she went to kick off her shoes, except, there was nothing to kick off, and her feet stung. Where the hell—oh, right. Karen stumbled over to her desk and made herself a note on the first scrap of paper she could find.

—_You lost your shoes._

The second pair this year.

Her head pulsed, the first of what was sure to be many waves of pain. That was a bad sign.

All she wanted to do was sleep, but she was already beginning to feel dirty and grimy. She didn’t want to wake up like that. So, with her eyes heavy and her limbs uncoordinated, she swayed with all the grace of a drunken master to her bathroom. There, she ran a shower and stripped everything off of her. Downing two painkillers, she ducked under the weak spray of her shower head and washed the night off.

It was nice. She just kind of floated through the experience. Her mind was so focused on shampooing, rinsing, and washing and rinsing, that it couldn’t wander off anywhere else. Like a path that lead to how lonely she was, on a good day. Like a place where she examined too closely why she’d stopped wishing for Matt and started wishing for someone who understood her, who didn’t judge her for fucking protecting herself, who didn’t make her feel like she was one of the damned, even though she already knew she was. Twice over, at minimum. 

Nope, she didn’t think any of that at all. And if she did, it passed quickly enough for her not to notice it. Like her shoes.

She toweled off and grabbed her purse before she fell into bed. Her phone she tossed onto the nightstand and the gun was unceremoniously stuffed underneath her pillow. 

Her eyes started to water when the stress caught up to her. She was drunk, tired, and mortified. She couldn’t believe that she’d gotten that bad—that she’d go so far as to—

She heard something rattle in her front room.

“Frank?” She whispered. She looked up and when she did, she felt the water in her eyes bead and run down her cheek. 

There was no answer.

Of course there wasn’t.

_“You could find someone to love instead of fighting another war.”_

_“I don’t want to.”_

Karen turned her face into the pillow and let her tears flow freely. She pretended, so much. She pretended she was okay, she pretended that he was close by and watching her. She pretended that sharing air in the elevator meant something to him, that that interrupted motion toward her in that hospital room, meant something to him. 

She was pathetic, he’d never told her anything to give her hope, and yet she still somehow had it anyway. Lying to herself wasn’t getting her anywhere. So, she was done. She promised herself that she was done.

Honestly, she didn’t even know why she bothered to care anymore… only that she couldn’t help herself. But she was finished with that excuse. She was a grown woman. She had control. Over her thoughts, over her impulses, she had control over all of it. 

And she was done.

Karen woke up the next morning tender. Her face ached with bruises, her arm was scabbed over, and her stomach twisted itself around, reminding her that she wasn’t nineteen anymore and her tolerance wasn’t what it used to be. She rolled over with a groan and blinked open her eyes.

On her nightstand was a bottle of acetaminophen along with a glass of water. There was also a taser. Karen immediately shoved her hand under her pillow and found the space smooth and bare.

God damn it, Matt.

* * *

Karen was both proud and annoyed that her life didn’t change at all after her little resolution. She still threw herself into every case and every lead that Matt and Foggy threw at her. She still took lunch away from the “office” because really, an investigator shouldn’t smell like a roasted meatball sandwich. With nothing to change, it highlighted how caught up in her own brain she’d become.

Well, some things she could have changed, but didn’t.

If certain white roses never left her window sill, it was because she liked them there. If she never called in the jenky latch on said window, it was because she was up on the fifth floor, what did she need it for? Not that her landlord would fix it anytime this decade even if she did. If she coaxed the boys out of Josie’s occasionally and onto trendy rooftop bars with open sight lines, it was because she wanted something new. Was there something so wrong with that? After all the shit they’d been through, they should live a little. Come on, Matt.

“Yeah, come on Matt.” Marci backed Karen every time, she was all for leaving behind Josie’s. Besides, it wasn’t _every_ time they went for drinks. No matter how the boys whined.

Her days passed one interview, one research project, one lunch hour at a time. The oppressive heat gave way to the warning chill of fall. Everyone broke out their boots before flooding social media with pumpkin spice selfies.

As a joke she had carafes of the stuff sent to the Bulletin’s office. Best wishes—Page. Ellison threatened her with a harassment lawsuit, but the interns loved it.

She strolled and strolled down walkways and along piers, ignoring the phantom echo of heavy boots walking along beside her.

They won cases and this time were smarter about demanding enough restitution for both the client and to pay their own bills. Matt felt terrible about it at first, but all Foggy and Karen had to do was slap down some of the old “past due” envelopes that had been accidentally packed up from their last office. Not that he could see what they were, but he figured it out.

They weren’t getting rich by any stretch of the imagination, but the bills were getting paid, and they were well on their way to finding their own office space.

Sometimes Matt showed up to work late, bruises on his face with his knuckles torn open. They didn’t ask. While he hadn’t missed a trial in a long time, Foggy was the lead on almost every case, and heavily informed about the rest. It’d been a year now, and while the eggshells underneath their feet had turned to tempered glass, they were still being cautious around each other, still trying to learn to trust each other again. Foggy was better at it than any of them.

Karen didn’t say anything about the taser. Just like Matt didn’t say anything about the gun she bought to replace her other one. They had both gotten their point across.

Though, she did start taking the taser with her to work. The gun she reserved for meeting shady people or tracking down more dangerous leads. It was the closest she came to offering up an olive branch. Matt seemed willing to take it.

He slides over a new case for her to investigate. A Mrs. Armin contacted them wanting to sue the company her son had worked for. He’d died on the job site due to unsafe working conditions. Karen nodded and got to work. She already had an idea of how to get onto the construction site.

* * *

Karen heard more gunshots as she kicked up above her with her feet. The men, who she could only assume were mobsters, had snatched her off the street in the twilight and stuffed her violently into a car trunk, purse and all. 

The whole ride here, she could only swear at herself for being so stupid. The latest case for the firm had come in, a poor mother and her dead son in a warehouse “accident” caused by the building not being up to code. It hadn’t taken Karen long to find the mob connections and to find that the site inspector had signed off on everything over a $300 lobster dinner.

She kicked harder at the lid of the trunk. She’d shot off the lock, once she’d heard guns in whatever location they happened to be at. She figured they’d be too distracted with whatever the fuck was going on out there to worry about her. So far, she’d been right. 

“Just a little more proof” she’d told Matt and Foggy, “and we’ll have enough for a slam-dunk.” 

Damn it, she should have known better. Next thing she knew, she was grateful that these brutes didn’t know who she was, because hadn’t bothered to search her or take her things. The last week or so, she’d been carrying both the gun and the taser due to the nature of her investigation. Thank God, for that.

Fucking hell. She was just too tall to get the proper leverage inside here.

Swearing about needing to go to yoga, Karen managed to fold herself into enough of a pretzel—knees practically up by her ears—and gave one final heave.

The lid popped up and she shrank back into the car rather than just jumping straight out. Sure enough, someone fired at the sudden movement. The metallic twangs of the bullets bouncing off or punching through the car were new. Every time she’d been surrounded by gunfire it was usually in a hotel, or in a field, or in some shady location, but each of the seven bullets had lodged straight into the body rather than bouncing around the—

No, she wasn’t panicking or anything, she was fine.

She forced herself to take two shaky breaths, then she dove clumsily out of the car, trying to stay as low as possible. A hail of bullets hit the car again and the staccato retort of something automatic shot immediately after. Karen looked around as much as she could.

Typical shady warehouse. Empty for the most part. There were some crates stacked over in the corner, but they weren’t going to do her any good. She looked behind her and saw a half open bay door. The mobsters hadn’t driven too far in before they had taken fire.

The instinct to know urged her to stay, panic urged her to freeze and lay low, logic told her she needed to get the fuck out of here _now_. She decided to lean on logic. She couldn’t care right now. There was no one coming for her. Matt and Foggy probably didn’t know she was even gone yet.

She waited until the two parties exchanged fire yet again, then made a desperate dash towards the partially open door. She fled from the cacophony of shouts and gunfire, not looking back even as she flinched from the heat of lead darting past her face and her arms. 

Around the door, just get around the door. Karen reached out when she got close enough and grasped the edge in order to better haul herself around it. A shot ricocheted off the door right by her hand, but it missed. A familiar roar sounded behind her as she heaved herself to cover on the other side, but she was too panicked for it to truly register.

Outside in the chill of the mid October air she frantically glanced around. Seeing no one, Karen took off at a sprint grateful she’d worn flats today. 

Her legs ached and her lungs felt like a chemical burn, but she didn’t stop running until she had at least a few blocks between her and the firefight. After that, she ducked behind a dumpster and tried to catch her breath, while simultaneously listening to see if anyone had come after her.

One tense minute then two passed, she still gasped like a landed fish, but it felt like oxygen was actually getting to her brain now. A woman’s instinct to hold on to their purse was saving her ass so many times tonight. She dug around in her bag and found her phone.

She called the cops. 

“There’s a massive shootout going on over by—” she had to get up and leave the relative safety of the dumpster in order to gain her bearings. Thankfully, not being drunk, it was much easier for her to do this time. She told them the cross streets “—there is some mobster involvement. I just got away.”

“Ma’am, are you alright? Are you—” Karen hung up. Normally she would stay, talk to the cops about what happened and try to figure it out with them, but a gut feeling had her trying and failing to hail a cab, then hauling ass to get back home.

Her second burst of running didn’t last long, so Karen settled for a fast walk most of the way home. She promised herself that she was going to start making time to run and that she would start wearing tennis shoes everywhere that wasn’t work. She wound up in enough situations like this that it was simply more practical. It took her the better part of fifteen minutes to make it home.

Feet blistered, and body sore she did her best to jog up to her apartment. Her hands trembled so bad from fatigue and the adrenaline crash that it took her three tries to get the keys in the lock, but she gritted her teeth and forced her hand to still enough to slide the key home. She threw the door open, walked in, and slammed it shut behind her. She twisted the deadbolt, threw the chain and slammed her back against it.

The solid support of the wood held her up, making her feel more stable on her shaking legs. Her lungs felt like they’d been seared on a fryer, but she’d live. Fuck, she needed—

Something. She needed something. But she couldn’t think right now. Her keys dropped from her nerveless fingers.

Did she call Matt? She discarded the idea. He couldn’t do anything. If he wasn’t already there, by the time he _got_ there, everyone would be long dead. That and the police would be there by now and really, those two should probably limit their exposure to each other.

Karen couldn’t think, all she wanted was to slide down to the floor and stay there. She didn’t—she didn’t know, what to do. Were there more? Did she abandon her apartment? Dealing with mobsters was always tricky. She wasn’t exactly anonymous, but she wasn’t exactly famous either. There was a chance they might not have passed word about her up their chain. People in charge of this arm of their operations may have decided to take care of her quietly rather than spreading to others in the Family.

She’d taken off pretty hard, and ducked between enough alleyways that she might be fine. 

She was probably fine.

Heavy boot-falls thundered up the staircase through her building. They were fast and getting louder by the second.

Shit.

She plunged her arm into her purse and latched onto the first thing her fingers touched. It happened to be the taser. Didn’t matter, the gun was right beside it. Backing away from the door, she spread her feet apart and planted herself, ready for whatever was about to burst through that door.

Closer, _thud-thud-thud_. Closer,_ thud-thud-thud._ Three… two… one.

Her front door busted open in a loud shower of splinters. He burst into her place like the barely contained explosion he was, all fire and noise. Frank.

Adrenaline allowed her to see all of him in an instant. His sharp jaw, his broad shoulders, his stupid ears, all the puzzle pieces she’d looked for in the faces of strangers, whole and outside of her mind in full high definition. My god.

He froze once he saw her aiming at him.

“Karen. Karen, it’s me. It’s Frank. Are you alright?” He asked frantically. 

She barely thought about it before impulse took her over.

She fired.

The leads shot out attaching to different points on his body and sent 50,000 volts streaming through his entire system. He stiffened like a board and dropped to the ground, almost exactly like he was having a seizure. It hurt like a bitch. She knew, she talked Brett into giving her a mini training session, which included getting shot herself. 

Frank grunted and groaned until she let off the trigger. For a moment or two he just lay there panting, his body twitching in the unpleasant aftershocks.

“Jesus, Karen. It’s me!” He half growled half shouted, trying to get his arm underneath him. After being shot, stabbed, shot again, tortured, and killed at least three times—that she knew about—a little electricity wasn’t going to keep him down.

She tased him again.

In all honesty Karen wasn’t exactly sure what she was feeling with her finger on the trigger. She felt better though.

The second, shorter round of shocks was enough to put him out. Once his eyes rolled into the back of his head, she knelt down and checked his pulse. Still beating strong.

Good. She was pissed, but she didn’t want him dead.

She looked mournfully at her busted door frame and the swinging door jam and sighed. At this point, she kept kits in her closet, because the amount of times her door had been broken down was ridiculous. She went and grabbed one of those kits, stepping around Frank’s heavy body to fix her door back up.

She stripped the trim and took out the ruined stud. Then replaced it all. When her neighbors yelled about the noise, she yelled back.

“This is why I left the fucking window unlatched.” She muttered under her breath after shouting at Mr. Cordova. She’d put down the drill when she was finished with it. “But, nope. Got to break down the door. Did you check, ‘Pete’? Did you check at all?”

Part of her pointed out that if she had been in trouble, him busting down the door would have been one of the most welcome things to happen to her. But she was fine and not in trouble, so she stuffed a gag in that little voice and shoved behind a door in her brain. She didn’t want to listen to that right now.

The whole thing took about half an hour. It didn’t look pretty, but she could worry about that later. What was important was that it shut and it locked.

At this point, she was starting to feel pretty guilty. Enough so that she tried to pick up Frank and drag him to her couch. Yeah—nope. She dropped him. That wasn’t happening. She debated what to do with him. Heavy bastard. At least Matt was lighter and she usually had Foggy around to help on the rare occasion he let himself pass out around them.

She unlaced Frank’s boots and pulled them off his feet, almost landing on her ass. She divested him of all his weapons except a knife and his backup in the ankle holster. It took her a moment of examining him to figure out the heavy Velcro and straps of his bulletproof vest, but she managed to get most of that off of him too. She push-pulled the back plate out from underneath him and tossed all of it into the back corner of her closet. Original she knew, but she was making a point.

She stared at the couch, then stared back down at Frank. The five-foot distance between the two may as well have been a football field. Instead, she decided to strip it of its pillows and her throw blankets. One pillow, she stuffed under his head. Another, flatter, one she used to brace the shoulder she remembered being dislocated once upon a time. The throws she spread out over his frame. 

She noticed something, instead of standing up and leaving him alone like she should.

He looked good. There weren’t any cuts or bruises on his face. No swelling anywhere that she could tell—well, a bump on his head now from where he fell, but that was her fault. His skin was whole, but deep bags underlined his eyes. He hasn’t been sleeping. His hair was longer, closer to the length that it was when he requested information on Micro. She ran her fingers through it.

It was softer than she thought it would be.

All the times she’d touched him—granted, they weren’t that many—she’d never touched his hair before. She’d hugged him, held his hand, touched her forehead to his, carefully touched the only unbloodied part of him, but never anything beyond that.

Her fingers had traced a third of his visible scars before she realized what she was doing. She pulled her hand back and pulled herself away.

Open hand, closed fist, no sand. She still had the same problem she always did with Frank, she didn’t know what she wanted to be to him. She didn’t know what she _could _be for him. And even if she could decide, he probably wouldn’t let her anyway.

She sighed and decided to go to bed. It’d been a long day and she’d deal with it in the morning.

Just in case, though...

She walked over to the window slid it open. “Thanks! Don’t need you hanging around.” She called into the night. “And if you were just going to brood on a rooftop and listen, the least you could have done was help me with the door.” Then she shut the window and latched it.

The chances of Matt actually hanging around her apartment was slim, but the facade of omnipresence was cultivated by making some educated assumptions. And a sense of omniscience was best cultivated for children and wayward vigilantes, lest they thought they could get away with shit.

Karen stuffed her gun underneath her pillow and fell asleep with a smile curling around her lips.

* * *

She nearly stumbled over Frank on the way to her coffee machine the next morning. He’d turned onto his stomach some time during the night, trading unconsciousness for sleep. 

Theoretically there shouldn’t be a difference, but having experienced the two for herself, she knew there was. He probably needed it.

That thought made her second guess her need to make coffee this early in the morning. The noise and the smell would more than likely wake him up, but she needed to hand in a report to Foggy. Knowing herself, it would be incomprehensible without caffeine. 

Frank’s ripping snore came out of nowhere and caused her to half jump out of her skin. The curse of so many broken noses. The snore changed her mind. If he hadn’t woken himself up yet, she was probably fine. She started the coffee.

Karen sent Matt and Foggy an abbreviated and redacted version of last night’s events via text message and while she was at it, told them she was working from home today. After turning down the obligatory offers to come check on her, she started writing up the reports she owed them.

By the time Frank groaned and opened his eyes, she’d laid out a glass of water along with a muscle relaxant on a tissue on the floor in front of him. From the couch she could see him twitching awake in the corner of her eye, though she never stopped her rapid typing on her laptop.

In her stay-at-home clothes, she had her bare feet propped up on the coffee table to let the blisters dry. Ointment and bandages sat next to them, waiting to be used.

In her peripheral, Karen saw him achingly sit up. He hesitated for a moment, seeming to orient himself while he examined her offerings. Then he took the pills, chugging the glass of water in one go.

“There’s coffee if you want some.” She said, never looking away from her screen. He flinched at her voice. “I put it on half an hour ago, so it shouldn’t be burnt. Let me finish this and we can do something about breakfast.”

She kept on typing for a minute, but when he didn’t answer, she looked up at him. He was staring at her; his jaw set and his expression unreadable. Karen imagined that he was torn between shouting at her and getting that coffee. She returned his gaze with a look of her own. 

If he wanted a fight, she was more than ready for one. Just like with Matt, she’d been thinking about exactly what she wanted to say to him for months. 

The man clearly had been married once, the proof was in how he chose to stiffly push himself up off the floor and look for a mug rather than start a fight with her just yet. Smart choice.

The light taps of her fingers on the keys resumed as she heard the soft clinks of the cups and the liquid pour out of the pot. She was grateful for her time at the Bulletin, her fingers could keep going at a steady pace despite their trembling.

She snuck a couple of glances as she went. Frank hovered by the sink for a moment after he had his coffee, but then seemed to decide that the table was a better place to wait. Karen wondered how sore he was. She saw him rub absently at the knot on his head and felt just a hint of smugness.

She finished up what she’d found out about regarding Cecil Mosher’s will and his relatives. There needed to be a follow up appointment, but it wasn’t urgent. As for Mrs. Armin and her deceased son, they would have to act fast before the government took a hold of all the mobster’s assets, otherwise the poor woman wouldn’t receive a dime. She sent off both reports, and it wasn’t even eight in the morning. At least the boys would be able to jump on the info quickly.

Karen shut the laptop with a neat click, before yawing and stretching. She winced when her feet hit the floor but got up and headed to the kitchen anyway. Frank’s eyes followed her to the coffee pot where she got a refill.

Breakfast consisted of freezer burnt bagels and expired cream cheese. It was either that, or some mutating take-out. They’d snatched her before she could grab food. Frank didn’t seem to care either way, he just ate mechanically as he continued to not break eye contact. 

She could tell when the meds kicked in, because he began to really work himself up. He started ripping bites out of the bagel and would lift his brows at her in a challenge, daring her to say something.

Karen knew she wouldn’t win the waiting game, but she was going to damn well finish her breakfast and her second cup of coffee before giving in. There was no mold on the cream cheese so she applied it liberally to every bite and took her time eating it. It was still only the one bagel though; soon enough she finished it and was taking the last sip in her mug.

All right, time to pull the pin on this grenade.

She set the ceramic down on the table and began rather flippantly, “Don’t you have someplace you need—”

“What the hell were you thinking?” He growled immediately. It was low and soft, like a warning snarl from a dog.

Karen’s eyes narrowed. “What the hell was _I_—”

And then they were off.

“You busted out of the trunk of a car, in the middle of a firefight—”

“Hey, I didn’t _ask_ to be in the fucking trunk—”

“After wondering if you’re dead or not—”

“—it’s not like you told me you were planning to shoot the place up.”

“You _fucking_ tase me!” His tone grew into a shout. He slammed his hands on the table making the dishes rattle. “They followed you here, Karen did you know that? They could have fucking killed you and you put me out of commission.”

She felt her stubbornness set in her jaw. She wasn’t going to try to claim she had everything under control last night, because she didn’t. And yeah, the taser had been stupid and petty, but she was done being shouted at by this man. 

Instead she said, “Recently, I’ve come close to dying a lot more times than just last night, Frank.” Her voice wavered and she let it, knowing it would hurt him more. “And you weren’t there for any of it.”

He flinched back then shoved himself away from the table, scraping his chair along the floor. Leaping to his feet he paced like a caged lion around her kitchen. 

The movement brought her back to their meeting down by the water, he’d done something similar then. She mostly remembered him being restrained and cuffed to different hospital beds. Idly she wondered if he was the type to move when he was upset—if this was normal for him or special for this.

“I was investigating a case,” she said, “and I was being _careful_—for your information. I had just uncovered a mob connection with a building inspector early yesterday morning. I figured I would have at least had a day, but they snatched me off the street before then. I wasn’t even sure which syndicate it was! How the hell was I—”

“Goddamnit, Karen—”

“You shut-the-fuck-up and let me finish!” She snarled up at him. 

In fact, she pushed up to standing so that way they were closer on equal footing. Rage burned in his eyes but he made a show of shutting his mouth and he stuck his chin out like he was expecting a blow. 

She ignored that and continued. “I had no idea that you were going to be anywhere near that shit. I had no idea that you were even alive! As unbelievable as it seems it was all pure fucking coincidence.”

“Yeah?” he asked pacing around the table.

Her brows rose in answering challenge. “Yeah.”

“Yeah? ‘Pure fucking coincidence’, huh?” He loomed over her. Not by much because of their respective heights, but he did his level best. 

She wasn’t scared of him. He’d proven too many times that he’d die for her. He wasn’t about to hurt her now.

“All that gunfire making you deaf, Frank?”

He slammed the table again. It was hard to believe the sound he made came from a human chest but it did. While she instinctively recoiled, she never looked away from him.

“You think this is funny?” He asked, he brought his face down close enough to bite. “You think this is a joke?”

She refused to bow before his intimidation tactics. “See me laughing? I’m wondering where the hell you get off thinking that you can just waltz into my life out of nowhere, _again_, and yell at me?”

“They had you!” He grabbed her arms in his massive hands. If it weren’t for his iron morals, he’d be shaking her. “Don’t you understand that? When you were dashing from that fucking trunk to the door, they had you in their sights! If I hadn’t been there, if I didn’t make a fucking impossible shot—”

He cut himself off and stormed towards the living room. Karen swallowed hard, her own hands trembling, and she clenched them into fists to make them stop.

“And then you—” he breathed hard through his nose. “And then I followed two of them, the whole way to your apartment. I only got one of them. And you _fucking_—” He ran a hand through his hair and when that wasn’t enough, he kicked her sofa shoving it about a foot back. 

He wouldn’t have been fine with being put out of commission in the first place, but the fact that she did it when he was worried about her is what must have made this so unbearable for him. 

A lull settled into the fight. Frank walked to the window, checking her sight lines, staring at the people down the street. Karen crossed her arms, holding herself even as she swayed from foot to aching foot, refusing to sit down just yet.

Karen pressed her hand to her mouth before her guilt could speak for her and start babbling apologies. Was it a mistake? At this point she would say yes. However, there’s a reason she made that decision in the first place. And they would talk this out once and for all, because he either needed to be part of her life, or out of it completely.

A part of her keened at the thought of never seeing him again, but she couldn’t keep doing this.

“I can’t stand the thought of you hurt, Karen.” He admitted quietly, pleadingly, his commanding tone gone. “You know that. I’ve told you that.”

Curse this stubborn bastard and his ability to make her want to cry.

“Yeah? I guess that only applies to physical hurt, right?” She asked bitterly.

Frank heaved a sigh. He muttered something under his breath, but she didn’t quite catch it.

“I asked you... almost a year ago now, to make something out of this. Out of us. Out of whatever this is between us.” She padded around to face him. “Now, I don’t know what would have happened if that girl had waited thirty more seconds to come through that door, but I do know what happened in the following eight months.”

His expression shut down. Shuttered to her, she couldn’t read it, but there was definitely something going on behind those eyes. They steadfastly kept to the window, avoiding her own. She’d seen him look like this in the courtroom, in the hospital, and every other time he felt like he was being punished and deserved it.

She hated he looked like that because of her.

“I can’t keep doing this, Frank. I look for you, I worry about you, and at every opportunity you push me away. You don’t get both. If you’re going to leave me alone, then you need to leave me alone. No matter how close I am to dying.” He huffed and walked back towards the kitchen; Karen dogged him every step of the way. “If you want to save me, then be around more than just once a year.”

He whipped around and she almost ran into him. “Let me ask you this, where did you get the taser from? Last time all you had was the .380.”

Instantly, she knew. “Matt again?” she threw her hands up in the air. “Why do you constantly bring him up?”

“Why do you insist on throwing everything good for you away?”

“Good? You think he’s good for me?” She asked incredulously. “He disappears—much like someone else I know—he _still_ lies to me, and when he finally _is_ honest for once in his life, he thinks that’s license to take away my agency and make my decisions for me.” She feels her eyes watering, but she ignores it. “Even after everything he and I have been through, he still doesn’t trust me. He tries to protect me because he thinks I’m lesser.

“The difference between you and him, is that you never shied away from the truth, you’ve never avoided hard decisions. When you protect me, it’s because I mean well, _something_, to you—not because I’m an infant that can’t do a thing for herself. And at least with you, I could always see the reason _why _you broke my heart. He’s always just thrown it away.”

Karen saw Frank clenching his jaw, heard him grinding his teeth.

“_That’s_ what you want for me?” She asked as her tears spilled over.

“Shit. I’m no better for you, why don’t you see that?” He snarled.

“I’ve always told you what I’ve seen in you,” she said. “I’ve always told you what I wanted for you. The ball has always been in your court and I’ve done my best to respect your wishes.” He scoffed, and she shot him a wet glare. “I could have found you and I didn’t. I’ve left you alone because you made it clear that’s what you wanted. I’m making it clear now that that’s _never _what I wanted.”

“I still kill people, Karen. I haven’t changed at all.” He threw back at her. “I _know_ you’ve never been okay with that.”

He wasn’t wrong, she could give him that. “I’ll never stop wishing for something better for you,” she said quietly. “But my biggest problem with your killing isn’t the people, it how it weighs on you.”

“It doesn’t weigh on me.”

“That’s a load of shit.”

“I don’t feel an ounce of remorse for those shitbags.”

“Maybe not them, but you do for their families. You do for their victims. The whole business weighs on you and you cannot convince me otherwise.”

“You don’t listen!”

“Not to bullshit excuses.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about.”

“Isn’t it though?”

“Woman, I swear to Christ—”

“You’re always telling me that I’d be throwing my life away. How can I throw something away that I chose to let go of?”

“I’m not safe!”

“_I’m _not safe!” She shouted back at him. “Did you hear about what happened at the Bulletin? Did you see me last night? Obviously you did, otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”

“And you want to make it worse?” he roared.

“How would ‘we’ make it worse? There’s no one hunting you right now, is there? Stop being so afraid and just make a decision already.”

“You think I’m afraid?”

“Like a child of the dark,” she spat at him. “You’re not afraid of murderers, rapists, or thieves—you’re afraid of being hurt. And if that’s too much for you, then there’s the door.”

“You don’t know what’s going on up here.” He jammed a finger to his own head.

“Then enlighten me.”

“I’ve slept with other women since Maria, while I haven’t even kissed you, do you want to know why?”

Jesus, she wished she had the taser.

“Probably for the same reason I’ve got a Tinder.” She shot back. His fists clenched reflexively, but he didn’t rise to the bait.

“One of them got shot,” he soldiered on. “She had a kid, she got mixed up with me and she got shot for it. After we rushed her to the hospital, you sure as shit know that I killed every one of the fuckers involved. But I left her, I didn’t go back. Not once, and yet I’ve come back for you.” He let out a shaky breath. “It’s not that I’m afraid of feelings, Karen. I’m not worried about getting hurt. I can deal with pain. I’m worried about what I’ll become.”

The words struck her a little strange. Something in his tone caught her ear. Karen did her best to close her mouth and lower her hackles. His raw honesty had always captured her and held her in a way she couldn’t describe, and she could hear that honesty in his voice now. If they had been boxing, she’d be letting her gloves fall to the side. He had her attention.

“I’m hanging by a thread here.” He noted her shift in body language and took full advantage. “I don’t know if it’s the bullet in my brain or if I was born this way and circumstances brought it out, but nothing makes me crazier than the thought of you not being in this world.”

Once he started, it was like he couldn’t stop. “Every time someone’s held a gun on you, I can’t see. The world whites out and I don’t even know what I’ve done ‘till it’s over. All I ever see is your face until you’re safe. Sometimes the rest comes back, sometimes it doesn’t. And that all started before we had even touched.”

She bit her bottom lip to keep it from trembling. Oh, Frank.

“What if I did stay?” He continued. “What if we did this, like you said and ‘figured it out’?” He took one step closer to her, and then another until he was close enough to kiss. “You always say I’m not a monster, but I know—_I know_—that thread’ll snap and I’ll become something worse than a monster if we did this and something happened to you.

“One kiss, Karen. That’s all it would take and I’m signing my death warrant.” He laughed bitterly. “Hell, maybe I’m already there. And that’s so wrong, so unfair to put that on you, but you just don’t _quit_.”

He bared everything to her. He looked her in the eye and let her see exactly what he meant in that diner years ago. He nonverbally told her exactly how she was ripping out his heart, tearing it to pieces, and digging in with her stiletto heels. And God, if he wasn’t shredding her too. 

Well, honesty worked both ways.

She showed no mercy. Turning her bright blue eyes on him, she marched her own feelings out for him to see. He’d always told her that she was an open book. He saw her love for Matt, when she still had it and now she showed him how her feelings had changed since then—how much _she_ meant her words now.

“I will never quit on you,” she whispered, but with steely conviction. His eyes widened and his breath became unsteady. “Never. Do you hear me? No matter what happens today. No matter if you walk out my door and I never see you again, I’m _never_ giving up on you. Not like that.” 

She reached out placing her hand on his chest. He’s warm and even though her hand was resting on the wrong side, she felt the thundering of his heart. He looked hunted. His expression made her feel like she pierced him with steel rather than just touching him. It hurt her to see him ache like that. Her other hand lifted to cradle his jaw. 

Reflexively, he covered her hand with his own.

“In or out, Frank,” she said, her heart breaking all over again. Her voice was barely more than a gust of air as tears fell heedlessly down her face. “I can’t live this half-life anymore. Can you?”

And so, she stood there with her hands out cupping her sand and fighting tooth and nail the urge to close her fingers. Wait… just wait… _wait_...

He stares. He stares and he stares and he stares. He eyes dart all over her expression, from her brows to her mouth, to her own irises. Searching for what she doesn’t know, but she’ll wait forever for him to find it, because they both knew this was their last chance. The dead man switch was pressed and Frank was holding the wires. Only he could decide whether to disarm or detonate the bomb.

He didn’t seem to know what wire to cut. His own face slowly twisted into agony, like he was desperately being ripped in two. 

A prim knock rapped upon her door.

“Karen?” Mr. Cordova from last night called through the wood. “Is everything alright in there?”

Karen sighed and closed her eyes, breaking herself off from Frank. She nodded. She nodded because she understood. The decision had been made for them. 

It broke her heart, but she knew that when she let him go, he would be out her window and down her fire escape before she finished dealing with her neighbor. It would take him all of ten seconds to find where she stashed his gear and then he would be out of her life forever.

She sniffed, patting him. Sliding her hands out from underneath his, she let him go. 

She called out, “Everything’s fine, Mr. Cordova, go back to your breakfast.”

“You’re causing a ruckus!” His voice went from concerned to angry once he heard her respond.

Wiping her eyes, Karen managed to take all of two steps towards the door before Frank grabbed her arm, spun her around and kissed her. 

She froze. Her mind blanked. 

Slowly she registered the warmth of his lips on hers, then how his hand slid to cradle the back of her head. It wasn’t until he started to move away that she got with the program and jerked him back to her.

Mr. Cordova was promptly forgotten, his now indiscernible shouts fading into the background along with his insistent thumps on her door. 

Her every sense was suddenly wrapped up in Frank. All she felt was the heat of his body pressed chest to hip to knee along hers. All she heard was his breathing and the soft rumbles deep in his chest. All she could taste was the lingering coffee and cream cheese accenting the human taste of him as they opened their mouths to each other.

If she cried before, she was crying harder now, still not sure she wasn’t hallucinating this whole thing. He wrapped her up in his arms and held on to her like he was never letting her go. 

He kissed her like a man who was doomed to hell, but happy to burn. It was more than she dared to dream.

“...cops!” Was the word that finally broke through her happy daze. Shit. Damn it. 

She tried to pull herself gently away from him, but he followed her, not giving her an inch. To be honest she didn’t want him to, but the last thing they needed were the cops dropping by because of some crotchety old man. She shuffled back, and Frank shuffled forward, never stopping his quest to melt Karen’s insides down to her toes.

She managed to stop right before they slammed themselves against the front door, and she had to stifle a moan, because his hands had started to wander.

“Ms. Page!” Mr. Cordova shouted through the door.

Frank abruptly released her, spun her around again and stepped behind the door even as he unlocked it for her. 

Karen cleared her throat, wiped her eyes and flipped back her hair as she opened the door. Her breathless, “Yes, Mr. Cordova?” could have just as easily been mistaken for exasperation rather than anything else.

“What do you have to say for yourself?” What little hair he had on his head was flattened and sticking up in places instead of the carefully combed presentation he normally showed. His wrinkled face scowled at her and he was still in his pajamas.

“Absolutely, nothing.” She shrugged.

“Who are you arguing with?” He demanded, trying to peer around her into her apartment. “Why all this noise first thing in the morning?”

“Mr. Cordova, I’m sorry I was causing a ‘ruckus’ this morning, but frankly it’s none of your business. If you want to call the cops, tell Brett Mahoney that I say hello.” He gaped at first, shocked she would talk to him like this, but his face slowly grew redder with each word she uttered.

“Listen here—”

“Is your mother-in-law moving in?” Karen cut him off, causing him to sputter indignantly. “After all the whole building heard that particular argument at two a.m. last week. You quite clearly lost that fight.”

“Wha—how dare—”

“Have a nice day.” She flashed him a sarcastic smile and shut the door in his face, re-locking it.

Frank snorted beside her. She pointedly ignored him. Her face on fire, she made an intense study of the patterns in the shitty paint job on her front door. His attention never wavered from her. She could feel the weight of his gaze like a finger on her jawline.

She didn’t realize she’d been holding her breath until she heard Mr. Cordova stomp away and it all left her in a rush.

Frank chuckled dryly. “You’re brutal, Karen. You don’t give a man an inch, do you?”

“He earned it,” she said absently. She managed to gather enough courage to turn and face him again. “I only unleash on those who’ve earned it.”

“Noted, ma’am,” he said softly. He ducked his head a little to try and get a read on her.

Karen wasn’t entirely sure what she was feeling, so she didn’t know what her face was doing. She didn’t trust in the permanence of his hasty decision just yet, and his own hesitation didn’t help. It was almost like now that they had stopped, they weren’t sure how to start again.

Frank held a hand out to her, strong, rough, and calloused. Karen wavered. She’d spent so long holding her hands open that she was afraid of reaching for what she wanted. Tentatively, she slid her own long fingers across his palm. Frank gently gripped her and drew her closer to hum until she was again against his chest.

He tilted his head down, offering. Karen huffed and smiled. She met him halfway, touching his forehead with her own.

They pressed against each other with closed eyes, their air mingling in the small gap between them.

The last time they did this, it had been a promise, a good-bye, and a thank you that smelled like smoke and blood. They had wanted to kiss each other so badly, but it would have been such a bad idea—for so many reasons. Karen stopped him, because she knew if she kissed him, he would have stayed. He would have let himself get caught and let himself be brought back in. She wouldn’t take away the vengeance he’d worked so hard for, just because she felt the need to piss off an extremist.

This time though, this time was different. This time it was a hello, a thank you, and a promise of a different kind. This time she rested a hand on his neck while he cupped her jaw. And when she tilted to the side, he did the same and kissed her so, so sweetly.

He pulled back, only to immediately return with a kiss to the corner of her mouth, and then repeated it to the other side. He kissed her in small tiny sips, teasing her, wooing her, until she caught his lip between her teeth.

He growled. It wasn’t the low threat of their earlier fight, but something deeper that sparked heat low in her belly and between her thighs.

Two things happened at once, then. He tried to lift her up and she tried a small jump to help him. He was sorer than he realized and she smacked an open blister on a chair they hadn’t pushed in. She hissed and he swore, but he didn’t drop her, so much as set her heavily back down.

Karen laughed even as she groaned, leaning into the warm juncture of his shoulder. “We are such a mess.”

“You’re fault.” He grumbled and buried his rueful smile in her hair.

She didn’t argue because, well, it was. She asked, “stay today, please?”

He sighed. “There’s still one more out there, Karen.”

“I doubt it,” she said. “Matt didn’t hound me enough for me to believe he wasn’t around. And given that no one tried to finish us off, I imagine he took care of the last one.”

Frank muttered darkly in a way that made her beam. She shifted so she could run her fingers through his hair, threading through it and petting him. “So stay,” she persuaded, putting the barest hint of pleading in her voice. “Just for today, then we can figure something out.”

“You’re going to be a handful, aren’t you?” he said wryly, pulling back to look at her. She gazed up at him through her lashes with practiced innocence. He didn’t buy it for a second. He sighed. “I guess I’ll have to stick around since _someone _hid my boots.”

There was no way to stop the relieved grin from spreading over her face, so she didn’t even try. She didn’t quite understand how she could go from livid and heartbroken to incandescently happy in the space of a couple of minutes, but she did.

“I wonder who that could have been?” She kissed him before he could scoff. “I tell you what, I’ll trade you an ointment rub for a back massage, what do you say?”

He made a noise deep in his throat and brushed his nose against hers. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

* * *

He hung around all day, just like he said he would.

He gave her that foot rub. Taking her ankles in his strong hands, he handled her gently, bandaging her small hurts with such care.

Karen absconded with his clothes, running them down to her building’s washroom while he took a shower. She gave him the back massage while they waited for the clothes to dry. Covered in nothing but a towel with all his muscles before her like a feast, it was a struggle not to turn her touch sexual. Frank probably would have been on board with it. It seemed like now that he had chosen this, he was diving in head first. But… it just didn’t feel quite right. Not just yet. 

Instead she worked out his knots as best she could with her inexperienced fingers. She smoothed out his back, kneaded his shoulders and rubbed little circles up his neck to the base of his skull. He slowly melted under her ministrations, groaning when she hit particularly stubborn areas then settling into small involuntary grunts when they shifted so she had his head in her lap, massaging his scalp.

He crashed out again when she went to grab his clothes out of the dryer, but only for about a half an hour.

“You’ve got some magic hands there, Karen.” He rasped when he woke up again. She chose to kiss him rather than make a tawdry comment about that.

They talked most of the day. Haltingly at first before they found their rhythm, slowly taking down the walls they had spent so long building up around themselves. She told him how she was working with Foggy and Matt again and that they were functioning okay for the most part.

“I was wondering,” he admitted quietly into her hair. At this point they were curled around each other on her couch, pillows returned. “I hadn’t seen any of your articles in a few months, but your social media was still active.”

“Well, I kind of, sort of got fired,” she said wryly. “But I’m surprised you’re anywhere near social media.”

And then she had to explain about Poindexter, about the Bulletin and the fallout. Frank listened to the whole tale with a fairly stoic expression. His eyebrows furrowed at some parts and his finger twitched a couple of times during her story, but mostly he just listened. Karen couldn’t remember the last time someone had done that for her.

“You’re more loyal than any of us deserve,” was the only comment he made after she told him everything. 

“Not hardly,” she scoffed. “I was almost on a bus out of here before he came to the fucking church.”

“You were looking out for yourself, just as you should’ve been,” Frank said. “Circumstance forced you to stay another day, but you still could have chosen to leave rather than keep going, and that’s what you did. Because your friends needed you, because you had a wrong to right. That kind of loyalty, whether to people or to a cause, is hard to find.”

Karen heard the sorrow in his voice and could only imagine everything that happened to put it there.

“Can you tell me what happened before the hospital? And after?”

“Are you sure you want to know?” He asked it genuinely. There was no challenge in his voice, he wasn’t trying to goad her or shove his deeds in her face like when he was trying to push her way—no, he was giving her a chance to backout.

Karen Page didn’t back away from anything, not anymore. She cupped his cheek and pressed a soft kiss to the bottom of his jaw. “Tell me.”

He did. Or at least, he told her most of it. She wouldn’t learn the specifics of Beth for a while, but he told her the rest of it, about Amy, about Billy, about the Amish hitman and the state official he’d been attached to. He told her more about Agent Madani than Karen ever thought she would know. 

She had to stifle a snicker or two, recognizing the echo of the almost sibling like relationship between them. Like the kind she had with Foggy, though through a very different filter.

“So that’s what she meant by ‘watch your wallet’.” Karen smiled.

“Little shit had sticky fingers, she was quick too.” All his gruffness couldn’t hide the affection he clearly held for her.

“Do you keep in contact with her at all?” 

“Not a lot,” he said. “Once every couple of months I’ll give her a call, just to check in, but she’s on her way to making a good life for herself, she doesn’t need me in it.”

Karen blew out an exasperated sigh, nuzzling into hollow between his trap and his collarbone. “Sometimes it isn’t a matter of need, Frank. It’s a matter of want.”

He froze. His breath hitched long enough that she knew she threw him for a loop, but then he held her tight and gusted like she punched him in the gut. “You women are going to send me to the loony bin.”

“What makes you think we aren’t already there?”

He laughed.

He left that night after a take-out dinner. He kissed her good-bye and promised to be back around to help her finish fixing the door. Karen clutched her phone in her hand, freshly programmed with his more permanent number.

“You better be,” she threatened, kissing him again.

“Yes, ma’am.” He grinned, waggling his eyebrows.

One final kiss and she let him slip away down the hall, down the stairs, and out the door. 

Part of her shouted—demanded—that she run after him and clench her fist around him and never let him go. But she couldn’t, she wouldn’t. She had to trust, and wait, for only a little while more. 

Ten minutes later, when she finally pulled herself away from the door and forced herself to sit back down with her laptop, her phone chimed.

**Pete:** What’s a good day for me to stop by?

**Karen:** How does Friday sound?

**Pete:** Sounds good.

That was it, and that was enough. Her shoulders dropped down away from her ears, she hadn’t realized they’d been inching their way up to begin with. She also didn’t know exactly when the cheek splitting smile took over her face, but she made no attempt to smother it. She _did _bite her bottom lip to stop herself from squealing like a teenager and tucked her phone next to her thigh.

* * *

When she got into the office the next day, Matt traded her a new taser cartridge for one of the coffees she brought in. His mouth kept twitching and she guessed that he had stuck around the night before after all.

He surprised her by not saying anything. Not a snide comment or thinly veiled judgement to be had. He even skipped the ‘being careful’ lecture.

Well, if he wasn’t going to bring up Frank, neither would she.

They simply went over her statement with Foggy before she turned it into the police. Her testament, in addition to ‘Daredevil’ dropping off one of the few remaining mobsters at the police station was enough for them to begin proceedings. The dirty inspector would serve time for not only the bribes but also for negligent homicide. 

Mrs. Armin would get justice for her son and restitution as well. While it wouldn’t bring back her son, Karen hoped it would give her some measure of peace. At the very least, she’d be able to keep her house.

They set that case to the side and began to work on the next stack of files. They had people coming in and out all day, and there was even a repeat client or two that expressed how nice it was to be able to get a sandwich while they waited.

“Not leaving for lunch?” Matt asked when noontime rolled around.

“Not today.” Karen shrugged, not really looking from her work. She missed the look that Foggy and Matt gave each other. She was too preoccupied ignoring the sheer amount of heat radiating from her cell phone. Or at least it seemed that way, but every time she picked it up, or pulled it out, it betrayed her by being a normal temperature.

She finally shoved it into her purse and shoved her purse under the table, so she could focus. It would have been easier if they had a case where they needed more investigative rather than paralegal work. But she would take what she could get.

Two subpoenas, a deposition, and a discovery review finally grabbed her attention enough that the rest of the day managed to pass without her hand twitching towards her cell. She handed over a stack of papers to Foggy. Yellow peppered the pages, highlighting all the mistakes she found that needed to change. She also found a couple of loopholes in another document that needed to be tightened up.

“Karen, you are better than any paralegal they had at my old office,” Foggy declared after he looked through her work.

“I highly doubt I’m better than trained professionals,” she laughed but appreciated the flattery all the same. 

“No, I’m serious, we’d be lost without you,” he said, flipping through the paperwork she handed him.

“He’s right, you know,” Matt spoke up. “We wouldn’t be half as good without you. So, take care of yourself, alright? Call us if you need us.”

Her eyes crinkled as she reached out and grabbed each of their hands. “I promise,” she said sincerely, “the next time I’m shoved into the trunk of a random car, I will do my best to call you rather than the police, alright?”

They groaned and protested.

“We didn’t mean it like that.”

* * *

**Karen:** The spare was dropped off at the police station, got confirmation.

**Pete:** Good to know that Red is good for something.

**Karen: **Is there anything you want for dinner on Friday?

**Pete:** I’m easy.

**Karen:** I strongly refute that statement. I’ve never had to work harder for a guy’s number.

**Pete:** Oh really?

**Karen:** Really. Never.

**Pete:** I believe that. No way guys would be able to say no to those blue eyes.

**Karen:** One did. For years.

**Pete: **Yeah, but even he caved in the end.

**Pete: **Where do you work now?

**Karen:** I told you.

**Pete: **The address. I can’t find you guys listed anywhere.

**Karen:** I’m surprised you don’t already know. Aren’t you friends with a super hacker?

**Pete: **That busy body is only to be contacted in cases of extreme emergency.

**Karen:** Can I ask why?

**Pete: **Let’s call it personal gratification.

**Karen:** Will you tell me about Curtis?

**Pete:** Now how did you get that name?

**Karen:** I was still working at the Bulletin when Lewis happened. I looked into him and found Curtis. And I found that his service record overlapped with yours.

**Pete:**

**Karen:** If it helps, I’ve never contacted him or wrote about him. I’m asking you first.

**Pete:** How about we talk about it over that dinner? It’s a long story.

* * *

Karen left for lunch on Friday afternoon. 

Foggy had been clicking his pen to the point of insanity, and if Matt sighed one more time, she was going snatch up the offending pen and shove it through his hand. She didn’t care if he had ninja skills. So, she grabbed her things and headed out to her park.

The scent of brisk autumn air banished the faint headache that’d been creeping in behind her eyes and the sunlight filtering through the buildings melted the tension lingering in her back. She crossed one intersection, then walked around another block to find the grassy area and a handful of benches.

One was only half occupied by a young woman in day old makeup. She didn’t so much as twitch when Karen sat on the other end of the bench. Karen saw headphones snaking their way up and out of her hoodie, buried in her ears. She shrugged, pulling out her sandwich and a file.

It was strange, she thought taking a bite out of her sandwich, sitting here surrounded by the same crowd of people she had been three days ago. She’d used them as an instrument of hope for so long, she didn’t quite know how to look at them any other way. But her hope was fulfilled now and… she’d never had that happen before. The warmth radiating out from the center of her chest was by no means unwelcome, she just didn’t know what to do with it. What do you do once your dreams come true?

Karen looked over the crowd of people and for once saw them wholly as themselves. That jogger with a crew cut was also thin, showing off his ropy forearms as he ran—probably a marathoner. The gangster with prominent ears had deeply tan skin and a colorful array of tattoos. The broad-shouldered businessman held up a phone to a neatly trimmed blonde beard.

She didn’t need to piece them together because the whole picture was having dinner with her tonight. Another stupid, dopey smile crossed her face and she ducked her head to her work.

As she made notes in the margins and paper-clipped things to cross reference when she went back to the office, she barely registered movement next to her. A quick glance showed the girl walking away. Her chances of being stabbed in the daylight were slim, but that didn’t mean it didn’t happen sometimes. Assured of her safety she brushed it off.

“Working on anything interesting there?” A gruff voice asked her.

Karen looked up.

Hello, Frank.

He was all there. His eyes, his ears, his badly healed nose, his wide shoulders, capable hands, right down to the same thick boots he always wore. Her own personal prince charming appearing out of thin air. Karen grinned like a manic lottery winner. If someone told her to light up a New York block, she felt like she could’ve grasped a live wire and done it.

Any worries or stresses she might have had were banished at the mere sight of him. See? He was right here.

“Nothing I can’t heartlessly abandon,” she said, closing the folder. She held up an open hand to him. He didn’t stare this time. He just placed his palm in hers and sat down next to her. “Is this why you were asking for my work address?”

“You can’t make me admit to anything,” he said as she pulled their joined hands into her lap.

“Oh really? That sounds like a challenge.” She pressed her lips to his cheek. He let her. “I wish you had told me, I would’ve waited on lunch.”

“Naw, it’s fine,” he said. “I’m glad I found you out here. Didn’t exactly have a plan when I showed up.”

She deposited the other half of her sandwich in his lap.

“Karen,” he warned.

“I rarely finish them anyways.” She brushed him off. “It’d be a waste of good ingredients if you didn’t eat it.”

He sighed, rewrapping it and stuffing it in his jacket pocket. “There. Happy?”

She gently turned his face towards her and gave him a rather saucy kiss as a reward.

“Very,” she hummed.

“Oh, well, if it’s gonna be like that…” He leaned down.

They chatted for the rest of her lunch. Karen was grateful. More than the texts, this reassured her that Frank was in this, just like he said he would be. 

He let her bitch her small complaints about Matt and Foggy, listening like a man who didn’t mind what she talked about, so long as she was talking to him. 

When she finished with that, she playfully pried about his day job. He told her last year it had been construction work, but this year it was being the maintenance man for some apartment complexes. He liked fixing things almost as much as he liked destroying them. It didn’t require a lot of talking either, which was good, with him trying to keep a low profile and all.

“How many middle-aged women call you to fix something that isn’t broken?” She teased.

He flashed an easy smile, that’s only a little smug. “A couple.”

“I’ll bet.”

Towards the end of their time, a cold breeze picked up, a stark reminder that winter was fast approaching. It blew through her light jacket like it wasn’t there. He opened his jacket and she curled into him, happily stealing his warmth.

“Tell me, on your epic road trip did you ever go to the beach?” She asked him as she took in the faint but spicy scent of his cologne.

“Nah, mostly headed west. The closest I came to a beach was driving about sixty miles away from one of the Great Lakes.” He shrugged, briskly rubbing at the arm not inside his jacket. “Why, you wanna go?”

“Might be a little early to be thinking about a vacation,” she cautioned. “But yeah, eventually. I’ve only ever been once.”

He hummed. “Well then, I think we can _eventually_ make that happen.”

She stayed longer than she normally would have, but she did have to get back and finish off her week. She left with kisses and reassurances that she would see him again in a few short hours.

As she walked back, Karen relaxed her open hands. She was no longer worried that the sand would spill out between her fingers because Frank was here and tangible. Now that she had something to hold on to, she was grabbing him tightly and never letting him go.


End file.
